I finally had two days in a row where I had the luxury of making croissants. Yes they take two days, however, when you bring them out of the oven and see them in their finished glory, you smile, and are rather impressed with your effort.
Ingredients
- 500g strong white bread flour, plus extra for dusting
- 10g salt, plus a pinch for the eggwash
- 80g caster sugar
- 10g instant yeast
- 300ml cool water
- 300g chilled unsalted butter, preferably a good-quality Normandy butter
- 1 medium egg to glaze
Directions
- In a mixer fitted with a dough hook, add the flour, salt, sugar and yeast. Add the water and mix on a slow speed for 2 minutes, then increase the speed to medium and mix for a further 6 minutes. The dough will be quite stiff.
- On a lightly floured surface, shape the dough into a ball, dust with flour and place in a clean plastic bag to chill in the fridge for 1 hour.
- Roll out your dough (making sure your surface is dusted with flour) to a rectangle about 60cm by 20cm and 1cm thick. Flatten the butter by bashing it with a rolling pin, into a rectangle about 40cm by 19cm. Place the butter on the dough so it covers 2/3 of the dough’s surface.
- Fold the exposed dough at the top down 1/3 over the butter. Gently cut off the exposed bit of butter without piercing the dough and place it on top of the dough you have just folded down. Fold up the bottom half of the dough. This creates a sandwich of 2 layers of butter and 3 of dough. Pinch the edges to seal in the butter and place back in the bag and refrigerate for another hour to firm up the butter.
- Place the dough on the floured work surface and make sure the short end is towards you. Roll into the same size rectangle as before 60cm by 20cm. This time, fold 1/3 of the dough from the top down, and 1/3 from the bottom up to make a square. This is called a single turn. Put the dough back in the fridge and chill for another hour. Repeat this stage twice more, chilling for an hour between each turn.
- The dough is now left for 8 hours or overnight to rest and rise.
- Put your dough on a lightly floured surface and roll out a rectangle approximately 43cm long and 30cm wide. It should be about 7mm thick. Trim the edges to make them neat.
- Cut the rectangle lengthways into 2 strips, and then cut triangles along the length of each strip. You should get about 6 out of each strip.
- Before rolling, hold down the wide base of the triangle and gently tug the opposite thin end to cause a slight tension in the dough. Now starting at the thick end of the triangle, roll up into a croissant. You will have 12 medium-sized croissants. For a traditional crescent shape, turn the ends in towards each other slightly.
- Put the croissants on the prepared baking trays, leaving space in between them to expand; allow 4 – 6 per tray. Put each tray inside a clean plastic bag and leave the croissants to rise at cool room temperature (18 – 24°C) until at least doubled in size. This should take about 2 hours.
- Heat your oven to 200°C. and line 2 trays with baking parchment.
- Lightly whisk the egg with a pinch of salt to make an egg wash. Brush the top and sides of the croissants with the eggwash. Bake for 15 – 20 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack. Eat warm.
